


He hadn’t dared dream of her.

by Sarie_Fairy



Series: Vignettes Between... [3]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Cancer, Cancer Arc, Episode 2, F/M, Kissing, Love, Redux II, Season/Series 05, Tears, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-09 10:17:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20993180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarie_Fairy/pseuds/Sarie_Fairy
Summary: This was written for Fictober 2019 from an anonymous prompt.Number 34 from the Types of Kisses - Writing Prompts34. Kisses that start on their fingers and run up their arm, eventually ending on their lips.It’s a bit angsty and involves the cancer arc. Well, the end of it. There' also love and Mulder and Scully so...This takes place after Redux II.I though it fit within canon so I put it with the series 'Vignettes Between'.





	He hadn’t dared dream of her.

Mulder was in the same uncomfortable chair he’d sunk further into after giving Skinner the best possible news. Scully’s cancer had gone into remission.

He didn’t know how long he had sat there. He would sit there for all eternity so long as the truth he now knew remained so.

Slowly, they began to file out of her room.

First Skinner. No words, just a sincere smile and a tight affectionate squeeze on Mulder’s shoulder.

Father McCue, with a nod.

Bill. A miserable look and the start of something, “You… you’re….” Then his words were replaced by a shake of his head and a dismal expression. With a dismissive wave of his hand, he retreated down the corridor. His head shake following him.

Then, Mrs Scully.

Mulder looked up as he heard her soft footsteps. He stood when she stopped by his chair and pulled her into an embrace—the height and size of this woman so very reminiscent of Scully.

They hugged for long enough to affirm the comfort and companionship they shared now; having survived on the same side of this awful, terrible thing.

She drew herself back from him, still clinging to his arms.

“Dana wants _ you _ to take her home, Fox.”

Mulder affirmed with a nod.

Maggie pulled back and kissed his face. Then she cupped his cheek where her lips had just been. Her smile spoke of the hell she had been through, her exhaustion and her relief.

“I’ll take care of her,” Mulder answered to no particular question.

“I know you will,” she smiled, releasing his arms and walking away.

Mulder took a breath and braced to enter Scully’s room again.

A few silent tears had slid down his cheek in the privacy of the empty hospital corridor and lonely hallway chair. He was vaguely aware that there was a well of relief to come.

He rounded the corner.

Seeing her undid him. She was dressed now, casually, sitting back on the bed, leaning herself against pillows. Legs stretched out, crossed at the ankles.

She was in remission, yes, but she looked the same as she did yesterday. Yesterday, when she was dying.

His face distorted simultaneously into anguish and relief—an escaping sound withheld by sharp teeth cutting his bottom lip. The dam of his lashes holding on too.

Scully had been contemplating something beyond the window frame and turned as she heard him. Seeing him, she swallowed hard as tears slid down her pale cheeks.

She jerked her hand out. It hovered in mid-air for but a moment until he rescued it. Moving quickly to grasp it with both of his. Bringing it straight to his lips. Kissing her fingertips as he perched on the edge of the chair by her bed.

He brought their tangle of hands and fingers down between them, resting them on the bed. Bending to her, his lips found the back of her hand—her pale skin, a criss-cross of rivers beneath— and he planted them there. Kissed her.

He kissed and kissed her hand before replacing his lips with the side of his face, his cheek. Resting there. 

Scully patted his head. Ran her fingers through his hair as his tears broke, running too.

“I’m so relieved Scull…” his voice fractured through her name. Cracked; an extrication of raw emotion.

“Mmm,” a tiny noise of affirmation alongside a small solemn smile. “Me too,” as a whisper.

He turned his face, kissed her wrist then. Gently held his lips there.

Her skin was warm. _ She _was warm. She was alive. She would _live _.

“I never wanted to believe it,” he mumbled into the tender skin of her forearm as his kisses continued up her arm. His hands still clasping hers. Kisses dotted on the inside of her elbow, with a taste of his briny anguish. “I was so scared,” he divulged. Finally admitted out loud.

“I know,” she told him and bent her head to kiss into his hair. “I was too,” her hot breath against his scalp.

He was out of his chair. Kissing up her upper arm, meeting the short-sleeve fabric, continuing over it.

“But -- I was more afraid for the people I love, Mulder, than for me.” He stared up through his lashes, her focus elsewhere. “The people I really truly thought I would leave behind. My mom,” she said, her voice quivering.

A kiss to her shoulder. Leaning into her, into her words; their faces so close.

“You,” she confessed.

He removed his lips. Looked up at her, met her eyes. Big and blue, blurred with a conflict of emotion; a spark in them that belied her appearance.

Without thinking, he kissed her. Kissed her mouth. Pressed his lips onto hers.

They joined steadily; pausing briefly at the first stage of grief, denial. _He was kissing her. Kissing Scully._ Almost instantly they bypassed to acceptance; moved their lips. Slipping, gently caressing. Mouths opening. Tongues seeking. Saying what words had failed to.

He sat on the edge of her bed, still locked in their kiss. Touched her face. Tenderly cupped her jaw, holding onto her. Stroking her skin.

He revelled in her scent, in her proximity, her viability. In her.

She licked his bottom lip inviting him further. A deep kiss, his tongue swirling hers. Her hand threaded through his hair. Both clinging on. All mouths pushed back into pouts and lips and tongues in affiliation: passion and tenderness.

This kiss was for him. He was taking it.

Taking it because he never thought he would get the chance to.

Because he’d held his breath for too many months.

Because he hadn’t dared dream of her.

Or think of his future without her in it.

Because he’d halted all his fantasies of her.

Taking it because he had been holding back the tide of truth that threatened to drown him alone in the dark for too many nights now.

Kissing her to prove she was here. Alive. Real.

His eyes were squeezed shut, and he pulled his lips away. They connected again, this time foreheads resting on one another’s.

“I thought you were dead, Scully. I thought you were dead.” Silently weeping, no hiding, no holding back; tears and truth.

“So did I,” she whispered.

They stayed like that and took breaths in unison. Remained until their eyes ran dry.

“Take me home please, Mulder. I’m ready to go home.”

Now he can hope.

Now he can dream again.

Now he too can live.


End file.
